the secrets of simple things

standing still for a few moments by the window, I force myself to notice the world outside. And my heart is warmed-- a touch of healing.

There's been rain this week, and we finally raked an entire tree's worth of leaves from the yard to the curb, so now the birds are in Paradise-- our barren muddy yard their cornucopia of insect delight.

There are still one or two scarlet leaves in the towering maple, slowly floating to the ground, here and there, on a breath of wind in the early morning sunlight.

Birds flitting. Leaves falling.

I shift my weight from foot to foot, resisting the urge to get moving, be doing, and undoing, the pressures of work, family, life. The floorboards creak, protesting. In their voice, I hear the hundred year old bulwark of this house reminding me that there is nothing new under the sun. No new threat to my peace and security-- this is all part of the human condition: condemned, redeemed, renewed.

and the birds dance across my window

An old man strides down the sidewalk, intentional, but unhurried. He has that upright, lanky movement men sometimes use, every leg joint contributing to increased forward energy-- like a marionette, freed from his strings to pursue an independent purpose. Men's purposes are forever the same: love, security, fame, and sometimes evil. But only sometimes.

and the leaves are spinning lazily down

a downy woodpecker hangs head first from the dead limb in the dogwood. There must be a buffet of insect life in that old rotten branch I meant to cut off, but never seem to get around to. The bugs eat the dead dogwood. The woodpecker eats the bugs. Death to life, and death to life again. Ut semper.

and the whole flock riots joyously from limb to grass